


New York Serenade

by lzclotho



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lzclotho/pseuds/lzclotho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story in which Regina Mills returns to this world to make Emma Swan remember who she is in time to save them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank my beta paradoxalpoised for holding my feet to the fire on this one's ending. It's much better for the time. The rest of it is the result of a bit of a fevered dream after watching the end of 3x11 "Going Home", and the promo for 3x12, so... SPOILERS, 'K?

 

Killian Jones reported back his mission a failure. Regina could tell there was more to the “I couldn’t get through to her” than he was saying in front of Snow and Charming. His flushed face and tightly compressed lips when he finished speaking spoke of untold volumes. The royals, dejected, went off to report to the Blue Fairy.

Regina pulled Jones aside. “What else happened?” she demanded.

“She isn’t going to remember,” he said. “It’s hopeless.”

“That woman is the very definition of hope, Hook. That’s why we need her,” Regina replied tightly.

“Well, she isn’t going to take any more goes from me.” He looked rueful.

“What did you do?” she blurted.

“I tried to kiss her. True love and all that, right?”

“You did what?” Regina felt her hand close into a fist and Killian reached for his throat, suddenly gasping.

“Gah, uh, k…” His voice trailed away with the last of his breath. Regina released her hold on him with a twitch of her fingers, watching him fall to the ground, gulping air hungrily.

Regina’s scowl was deep. “I can’t believe you-- Now we’re going to have to resort to a potion.” She twisted her fingers together nervously. She didn’t want to do that to Emma, to ruin her happiness without allowing her a choice. But their situation was dire, and she knew that Blue would suggest it next anyway. But perhaps…

“Killian,” she said firmly, grasping his hand and hauling him to his feet. “You are going back, but this time I’m going with you.”

“I don’t need dating advice, luv.”

“Good, because I wasn’t planning to give you any. I will get close enough to Emma to administer a potion.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regina finds Emma in New York City.

 

 

The first time she saw her up close again, it was a foggy morning along the riverfront. Regina settled to the bench and watched the front of Emma’s building from across the street, safe in the anonymity of distance. But she never mistook the dark brown head of Henry receiving a kiss and hug from blond Emma Swan as she pressed his lunch into his hands, straightened his backpack, and sent him running for the school bus with its lights blinking at the end of the block. Emma, and Regina, watched until the bus was gone.

Then Emma turned back to the front door and started up the steps to reenter the building. Regina hurried across the street, catching the door before it could close and re-engage the lock.

The frame jostled in her hand, making a noise. Regina’s gaze shot up the interior steps. She released her held breath when she realized Emma hadn’t heard. The woman walked up the stairs slowly, shoulders hunched, one hand trailing along the railing, and the other stuffed in the front pocket of designer blue jeans as she mounted the steps. The sight was familiar, and at the same time so fraught with memories, Regina felt tears prick at her eyes. She wiped at them with the back of her hand.

Regina waited until Emma was out of sight, rounding the stairs to the next floor, before she carefully closed the front door without another sound and began up the stairs herself. She just heard a door above her closing as she rounded the turn to the second floor landing. She glanced upward and stopped mid-step.

Killian had told her the apartment was on the third floor. Finally she stood before the door of 311, hand raised for knocking. She had thought to take the powder in her pocket, grab Emma once she was unconscious, and just be done with it, but now, about to be face-to-face with Emma, but seeing again the hunched shoulders in her mind’s eye, Regina discarded the idea entirely. She dropped her hand.

Deciding to wait -- it wasn’t chickening out Regina thought sharply -- she returned to the bench. Emma emerged from the building again half an hour later, a messenger bag over her shoulder, checking her watch. She ran past Henry’s bus stop and continued up the block through the crowd. Regina followed, threading her way through the people, keeping Emma’s unmistakable blond head in sight.

The woman didn’t look back, instead dodging around other commuters as she descended as quickly as possible into the underground station. Regina watched people pat turnstiles and push into the platform area. She tried herself only to find it wouldn’t turn for her. She could hear the squeal of trains rumbling through the tunnels and saw Emma up ahead heading for a platform. She smacked the turnstile, and a small magic burst yielded the necessary results. She pushed through and stumbled into a burly man.

“Hey, watch it,” he said before turning. “Oh. Hey. Sorry, lady. You okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Can you tell me which line this is?”

“It’s headed to GC,” he said.

“Thank you,” Regina patted his hand, lifting his memories. GC meant Grand Central Station. “Thank you very much,” she added and hurried to board the train, just pushing in two people behind Emma into the same car.

The train lurched and Regina stumbled into a pole. Grasping it quickly, she turned to relocate Emma. The blonde had taken a seat near the far end of the car, head leaning on the metal wall, fingers pressing at the screen of her phone. Regina could now see the thin wires of ear buds.

She felt the train’s motion even out a bit and, not unlike when on the deck of the Jolly Roger, it only took a moment for her to find her balance. She edged her way to the nearest empty seat.

Emma’s eyes darted sideways toward her but then looked away. There was no recognition, in fact no emotion showed in Emma’s face at all beyond the initial instinct to verify an approaching figure.

Regina settled back in the seat, one knee crossed over the other, hands folded on top, giving the appearance of staring straight ahead. However, she kept darting to her peripheral vision, absorbing her first close up look at Emma Swan in more than a year.

She had said goodbye to Emma, and Henry, at the town line and that had felt like spears through her chest at the time. Urgency aside, right now all Regina felt was relief. Emma was all right. She’d seen at a distance that Henry was also all right. They had the happy ending she had wished for them. If nothing else, Regina knew she had done the right thing.

Other than the furtive first look, Emma never once again looked at Regina. The blonde let her hair slip forward obscuring her face. The red leather jacket was gone. In its place Emma wore a business jacket not unlike many Regina would have worn in Storybrooke. Similar to the one Regina wore now. It was navy blue, simple cut, matched the dress pants. A pale blue cotton shirt finished the simple yet professional look. It was clear Emma’s bounty hunting days were behind her. Regina wondered exactly what sort of life Emma had carved for herself with Henry.

The train wheels began to squeal again and its speed slowed. Emma looked up, then stood up, shouldering the messenger bag. By the time the train stopped in the station the blonde was standing before the sliding doors ready to burst out at the front of the pack.

Regina was last off the train. She spotted Emma headed for stairs at the end of the platform. There was only a trickle of other people who had also gotten off the train at this station. Regina pulled her jacket smoothly around her body and headed for the stairs. At the top, she looked around past the metal fencing to relocate the familiar blonde head.

Emma was entering a Starbucks coffee shop on the next corner. Regina walked in that direction, reaching the sidewalk before the doors just as Emma came barrelling out, a cup of coffee held out slightly before her.

The arm with the cup went up, the lid popped off, and Regina and Emma were splashed with the hot brew. Regina inhaled the scent of soy latte.

Emma made a frustrated sound, not really looking up as she pawed at herself. Regina snapped her fingers, cleaning them both up. Emma blinked. Before she could comment on what she thought she had seen, Regina announced, “I’m sorry. Please let me buy you another.”

Green eyes narrowed suspiciously on Regina. “Excuse me?”

“I said I’m sorry. May I buy you another cup?”

“Why?”

“Because I caused you to spill yours.”

“I was the one not looking where I was going. Aren’t you gonna demand I clean your pantsuit?”

“Why? I’m fine. The drink’s on the sidewalk, not me.” Regina pointed to the crushed cup and lid sitting in a coffee puddle at their feet.

For a moment Emma looked dumbly at the drink on the ground. Regina said, “Please.”

The shoulders hunched another moment and then straightened slightly. “All right.”

Regina smiled and reached for the door as another patron was just leaving the coffee shop.

She bought Emma a new coffee, ordering it before Emma could open her mouth. She paid, and passed it over with a smile as soon as it was handed to her by the barista. She watched Emma take a steadying sip. The woman’s eyes went wide when she spotted something over Regina’s shoulder and then she ran out the door without another word. Regina glanced back to realize Emma had seen the clock over the counter: 8:15.

She turned back just in time to see Emma hit the exit. This time, the blonde didn’t run into anyone else before she made it to work.

 


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma confronts Regina for following her around.

 

“This isn’t a good idea,” Killian said. He’d said that a million times since Regina returned to their hideout aboard his ship cloaked in New York Harbor. Considering the crazy amount of water traffic, she’d almost considered leaving the ship uncloaked -- she’d nearly fallen in the water twice trying to step onto the invisible gangplank. Like any one of these people surrounding them with their own lives and problems would notice a full-size pirate ship. Hell, half of them thought Killian -- who refused to change into proper clothing for the city -- was an actor in some costume play they were apparently performing on Broadway.

Regina sighed, again, and stated why this was the only way forward. “Emma has always been slow to trust. I couldn’t change that.” She added, “You’re the one who put her guard up so recently with that kissing stunt of yours.” She sipped a coffee from the Starbucks where she continued to casually run into, or simply walk past, Emma each morning for the last week. “The only way we can do this is gradually. She’ll see me eventually as harmless, and then I’ll be able to get the last ingredients and create the memory potion.”

“What is it you need again?”

“A hair from her head. A keepsake she still has from Storybrooke.”

“The hair I could’ve gotten, sneaking into her apartment, lifting her hairbrush.”

“And have her throw up every barrier knowing her home’s been broken into? No. You could be surprised by her, or Henry. Someone would get hurt,” Regina pointed out.

“So you run interference.”

“You’re an idiot,” Regina said. She crossed one leg over the other, sitting back and sipping her coffee and watching the apartment until she saw Henry dropped off by the bus at the end of the school day.

“What about the boy? I could talk to him?”

Regina certainly couldn’t. Though she desperately wanted to. “His name is Henry,” Regina said sharply, “not the boy.”

Watching Henry go up the steps of the building and use his key on the door, Regina thought again how surprised she had been that the name, which had no meaning to Emma’s past, but meant the world to hers, had stayed intact through the memory rewrite. She wondered if Emma wondered sometimes how she had decided to name the child she’d kept at such a hard time in her life.

He was essentially a teenager now. He’d grown so much, she knew she would have had trouble keeping him in fitting clothes, so she wondered again how Emma had made herself so successful. She knew Emma’s survival instincts were strong, but she had no idea what skills the woman had parlayed into finding work here in the heart of the biggest city in the country.

“Why are you watching my kid?”

Regina turned to her left where Emma Swan stood on the grass at the end of the bench, leaning hard on the cast iron arm and glaring at her. “What?”

Emma’s gaze remained wary. Regina turned to introduce Killian, only to find he had vacated the seat beside her at some point during her reverie. She glanced toward the water and decided he must have gone back aboard the Jolly Roger. She sighed.

“You’re the woman from the coffee,” Emma said suddenly, searching her face. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here,” Regina said.

“You live here. We take the same exact train every morning to the exact same Starbucks for coffee, and you go to work in the same part of town I do?” Disbelief dripped off each word. “I’m not buying it. I want the truth. Now. How long have you been stalking me?”

“But --”

“Who are you?” Emma demanded.

Regina swallowed. “I am… new here. Just friendly.” She looked up into green eyes glittering with a hard light, but the glint faltered at Regina’s last word.

“You want to be friends?”

“I don’t want or expect that.”

Emma’s shoulders lowered. The tension in her arms relaxed. She stood upright. “Leave me alone.”

“I can’t.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I’d like to talk to you.”

“Is this why you only say a few words to me at the Starbucks each morning? You have your chance to talk to me. Now talk.”

Regina shrugged. “I suppose I hadn’t worked up the… nerve yet.”

“You don’t look the type to lack confidence.”

Oh what Emma didn’t know, Regina thought. She’d had everything that gave her confidence ripped away from her by her own hands, the day she gave up her happy ending with Henry -- and gave it to Emma instead -- in order to stop Pan’s curse.

“Probably not,” Regina gave the appearance of concession. “I’m sorry to bother you.” She started to her feet. She’d try again tomorrow.

To her surprise, Emma’s hand landed on her arm. “Why don’t you come in, have a cup of hot chocolate?” Regina’s lip twisted in distaste. “Or coffee. Whichever you prefer,” Emma added quickly.

“You just accused me of stalking you,” Regina said. “I think I should go.”

“Maybe I was a little quick to judge,” Emma replied.

Regina remained silent.

“What’s your name? I’m Emma.”

Regina felt every tiny movement of Emma’s fingers on her arm as she answered, “Regina. Just Regina.”

Emma let go of Regina’s arm and gestured across the street. “C’mon.”

“All right.” Regina cast a quick glance over her shoulder toward the cloaked Jolly Roger then followed Emma into the apartment building.

 


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emma brings Regina into the apartment where she meets Henry.

 

“Mom?” greeted Regina’s ear as she entered the door of the apartment a step behind Emma who turned to pull her key from the lock.

“Yeah, I’m home. I brought a guest. You got your homework done?”

“A guest?” Regina stepped alongside Emma as she heard the rush of footfalls. Emma turned just as Henry drew to an abrupt halt. He looked at Regina hesitantly.

“This is... I’m sorry you didn’t tell me your last name?“

“Just Regina is fine.”

“I don’t usually get to call adults by their first name,” Henry said.

“It… It’s all right. Just Regina.”

He looked at her with curiosity. “Okay. Didja know ‘regina’ means ‘queen’ in latin? I’m in second year taking it at school.”

“Does it?” Regina swallowed.

Emma touched her arm. “Coffee, right? Kid,” she gruffed with a smile at Henry, pointing back to his room. “Homework. You can do it at the table while we have Miss… Regina here.”

“All right.” Henry turned and vanished down a hallway Regina presumed led to the bedrooms.

“Kitchen’s through here.” Emma gestured her in another direction. “You act like you’ve never seen a teenager before.”

“I… haven’t. Hen--he’s your only child?” Regina asked with airy brightness she didn’t feel.

“Yeah, I don’t need anyone but him to make me happy, y’know?”

“I…”

“You have any kids?” Emma asked as she turned her back to Regina and started setting up the coffeemaker.

“I… No… not... anymore.” Unseen by Emma, Regina glanced back down the corridor toward where Henry had disappeared. “Are you and Henry…”

“No dad. He let me take a rap in jail for him and I never saw him again. Just me and the kid making the best of it.”

“You… you’ve done very well.” Regina sat at the table with its bright cloth place settings and fingered a wooden ring with a red and white gingham print napkin inside. Nothing looked familiar. So this is how Miss Emma Swan would have kept a home had she the resources to do so. It was nice.

Emma leaned toward her over the table. It startled Regina so much to be caught in that green-eyed gaze that she froze, bewildered. “Your coffee?” Emma said.

“Oh. Yes. Thank you.” Regina watched Emma place the cup on the cloth and settle in at her own seat on the opposite side of the table. She slide the mug closer to herself but traced her finger on the rim. Would the potion work in a hot liquid? she wondered. Emma drank coffee every day. Slipping it in would be easy with the right plan.

“Starbucks spoil you for typical house blend?” Emma asked.

“What?”

“You haven’t tasted the coffee.”

“Oh, no. No. It’s fine. I’m just. I’m not…” Regina looked at Emma. “Do you miss when he was young sometimes?”

“Don’t all parents think their kids grow up too fast? It’s okay though. The kid and me, we just keep going forward.”

Regina sipped the coffee. It was quite passable; she smiled then rolled her lips. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“You can, though I can’t guarantee I’ll answer.”

“Are you happy here?”

Emma frowned at her. “That’s kinda personal.”

Regina eased back. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

Emma leaned forward and grabbed Regina’s hand. “Wait. No. I’ve learned that people ask questions because they’re feeling something like that themselves. Are you happy, Regina?”

“I haven’t been happy for a long time, Emma.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what one single mom and a teenage kid can do about it, but maybe we can hang out some more. You live around here, right?”

“I should just leave you alone,” Regina said. She pulled away from Emma’s touch and stood. “May I use your bathroom?”

“Sure. First right in the hallway.”

Regina passed Henry in the corridor. She bit hard into her cheek before she could open her mouth and say something to him. She gripped the bathroom door handle hard enough to potentially mangle it in order to prevent herself from reaching out and pulling him to her in a hug. If she did though, she knew all would be lost. Her heart most of all.

 


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a week of casual encounters, Regina has earned a dinner date with Emma and Henry, where they make a proposal.

 

 

“I still say this is dangerous,” Killian told her. It was Saturday morning and Killian and Regina were aboard the Jolly Roger, still cloaked in New York’s harbor, just a few hundred feet away from Regina’s habitual park bench where she now met Emma Swan and walked to work with her every morning. “You got the hair.”

Regina nodded. Tucked in a vial already for safekeeping she had one of Emma’s hairs, freed from a brush she’d found in the woman’s bathroom a week ago. After two weeks in New York, Regina was only one step closer to breaking the spell she’d cast on Emma Swan’s memories. She began to wish they had another way to defeat the witch trying to take over the Enchanted Forest. Emma and Henry were happy. The minute the spell broke, Emma would be miserable again, know how much she had lost, and how much Regina had cost her.

On their daily walk, Regina and Emma spent their time talking. At first it had been inconsequential things: this or that news item, a bit of music, or sharing remarks on a street performance or graffiti artist’s work that they passed on their walks which were less hurried now, as they made time to spend together. Emma, Regina now knew, worked in investigations. Nothing that could take her out of town away from Henry. She combed computer databases for requested information. She admitted she hacked them sometimes, too, to find what clients needed. She worked for a company that paid the bills and provided health insurance for both her and Henry, and she felt useful and productive. She sometimes started to add she’d never felt like that before, but would stop herself mid-sentence, shake her head, and go on saying she’d been in New York City all her adult life. No traveling around once she got out of jail with Henry, she said.

She and baby Henry came east from Phoenix and immediately she landed the computer job. She had gotten a GED in jail and several different computer system certifications. By the time he was in school she was a project lead.

Regina knew it was all manufactured memories; conveniently plugged into Emma’s experience enough that she didn’t question it. But she loved hearing Emma’s happiness all the same. Because it meant that Henry was happy and safe. She saw and heard that a bit, too. Though she still tended to avoid being alone with him because she was certain her face would too easily give her emotions away.

“I’ve got an invitation to dinner tonight,” Regina said. “I’ll find the trinket eventually. I’ll ask for a tour or something.”

“You’ve asked about dozens of objects in the home already. What makes you think she still has anything anyway?”

“There’s a faraway look in her eyes sometimes, Killian. I know the memories of me… us.. All of us,” she reiterated emphatically, “are there.” Every time that faraway look surfaced, Regina felt both elated and depressed.

Emma hugged Henry a little harder these days before he went off to school, kissing his cheek and then brushing the skin with her thumb before patting him on the backpack and watching him run off to the bus. Regina watched it all from her bench. Emma saw her Wednesday and waved her over, but Regina just shook her head and walked away. Emma shouldn’t know that Regina walked behind a tree to hide for thirty minutes and cry. A wave of magic though and Regina’s bad cry was just a bad memory, her makeup and face perfectly calm once more for the morning’s walk. However, Emma had insisted on buying her coffee that morning.

It was now Friday evening. Emma had come home from work to the routine with Henry and homework. Regina recalled the invitation for Saturday night dinner had come that morning, over their coffees on their walk to work.

“Hey, Regina?”

“Yes?” Regina sipped her caramel latte as they walked out of the Starbucks. Emma held the door for her. She smiled; Regina smiled back.

“You wanna have dinner sometime?”

Regina lowered her cup. “Dinner?”

“Yeah, you know, last meal of the day?” The green eyes darted between hers, then there was another quick smile. Regina nodded. “How about Saturday my place?”

“Thank you.” As soon as Emma entered the building where her business was located, Regina hurried past, went to the next subway station and returned back to the waterfront park. Her heart was still hammering a hundred times to the minute.

She had a date. Even now, she had to fight to keep a giddiness from entering her words when she spoke about it. She glanced at Killian and then away from him. “I’m certain I’ll have the last ingredient for the potion tonight.”

“That’d be good, luv. I think you’re sailing too close to the rocks.”

“I won’t hurt Emma or Henry.”

“I was thinking about yourself, Regina. Swan’s a remarkable woman.”

Regina frowned. “You’re an idiot.” She pushed herself from the small table and quickly left the lower deck of the ship to stand in the bow. She hugged her coat to her, and her gaze immediately sought out the familiar sight of Emma’s third floor apartment balcony. Henry was sitting on a chair there, doing school work. Emma leaned out and put her arm around his shoulders as he leaped up to follow her inside. Dinner time.

Only one more day and she’d be joining them.

 

* * *

 

Regina looked down at herself, smoothing a wrinkle in her pants leg. She was startled when Emma opened the door. “Hey, you. C’mon in.” Emma stepped back, holding up a spatula away from clothing. “Just finishing up. You want something to drink?”

“What do you have?”

“There’s a red wine chilling to go with dinner, and a hard apple cider I usually warm and serve with a cinnamon stick.”

Regina had followed Emma into the kitchen. She reached for a counter. “Cider?”

“Yeah, I like it. Sorry, I guess you don’t.”

“No, no, I love it. I used to... make my own.”

“Well, this is store bought, but high end, so you wanna give it a try?” While she spoke, Emma returned a skillet to a warm burner and Regina inhaled, catching the scent of Italian spices. “It’s in the refrigerator if you don’t mind helping yourself.”

“Would you like a glass as well?” Regina asked, opening the refrigerator and finding the cider immediately, in a glass bottle laying on its side on the bottom shelf.

“Please. You’ll find the glasses there.” Emma pointed with the end of her spatula toward the top cabinet to the left of the refrigerator.

“What’ll I pour for Henry?” Regina asked.

“Milk.”

“Where is he?”

“In his room finishing his homework. I’ll get him in a minute. Door’s closed and he’s got music on, so he didn’t hear you arrive. Otherwise he’d be here. My kid’s taken quite a liking to you.”

“I… like Henry as well.”

“You know, you get a funny look on your face whenever you say his name. Does he not look like a Henry to you? I kinda always thought I’d never name a kid that. Seems kinda stuffy. But I must’ve been high on the pain meds after birth, because that’s what’s on his birth certificate.”

Regina tried to shrug it off. “I notice you don’t use it often.”

“It’s just been the two of us for so long. He hardly ever calls me ‘Mom’ either. We’re just the only other one to talk to.”

“Emma, I…” Regina hesitated. There were chinks in Emma and Henry’s happiness. How had she not seen this before?

“There’s that pained look again. C’mon. Pour the cider and let’s have a drink.”

Regina poured. Emma set aside the apparently now finished skillet and came over to claim her glass from Regina’s hand. A tingle shot up Regina’s arm, lodging in her chest.

“Thanks,” Emma said, tilting her glass rim against Regina’s in a silent toast and lifting it to her lips. Regina could only slowly lift her glass to her lips, caught in Emma’s green gaze. They both lowered their glasses at the same time. “Now, I’ll get Henry.”

“All right.” Regina felt breathless, like she’d just been running or she’d miss the subway train. She leaned back against the counter as Emma left the kitchen.

She could hear Emma knocking and then entering Henry’s bedroom, talking over the music no doubt filling his ears through headphones. Then Henry came running out. Regina turned to see him enter the kitchen doorway.

“Hi,” he said with a smile.

She fought to keep her voice calm and expression simple. “Hello again, Henry.”

Emma put her arm around Henry’s shoulders. “So we’re all here. Let’s eat.”

Regina followed Emma and Henry, who carried all the dishes between them, to the table. Regina sat where she was pointed, Emma to her right and Henry across from her, on Regina’s left. She didn’t realize until it had happened that she was at the head of the table.

Henry smiled, and it was just like a smile he’d give her when he was younger. Regina averted her eyes, overcome with emotion. That brought her to meet Emma’s eyes, who gave her surprisingly the same compressed and quirked smile. “All right, what’s going on?”

“I asked to have you here so we could tell you we want to help,” Henry said.

“Help? With?”

“I see you over at the park all the time from my window. You don’t go home. I… You don’t have a home, do you?” Henry asked.

She looked from Henry to Emma. She exhaled. “I did. I… had to give it up.”

“Foreclosures are still common, yeah.” Regina allowed Emma’s misconception to stand as a reasonable explanation.

“Would you like to live here with us?” Henry asked.

“I can’t.” She shook her head. “It’s just not possible.”

“We’ve got the space,” Emma said. “The couch folds out.”

Regina stared at Emma, then Henry. “Why would you do this?”

“You need help.”

“I never said anything.”

“You didn’t have to. I know that look. I had that look in the mirror when Henry and I first got to the city.” Emma put her hand over Regina’s; she withdrew it from the disconcerting tingles. “Why don’t you eat? We can table more talk for later. Henry was just so excited.”

Regina looked from Emma to Henry, then down to her food. Slowly she picked up her fork and ate, her mind whirling miles a minute. A sip from the cider, which was quite good, caused only a small warm calming wave through her body.

 

* * *

 

After dinner, Emma and Regina went into the living room as Henry handled the dishes. Her glass of cider was refilled and Regina found herself sitting on the couch. She pressed one hand on the cushion, remembering how Emma informed her about the hideaway bed within.

“Think of saying yes. It’d make the kid happy.”

“Why?”

“I’ve taught my kid to be a good person. Offering help, it’s what good people do, y’know?”

“I suppose it is.”

“You’re too used to being on your own, is that it?”

“You can’t possibly want me to stay here.”

“I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t mean it. Kids want things, but a good parent still uses her judgment. I coulda said no.”

“But you didn’t.”

Emma was quiet for several heartbeats. Regina had a hard time looking anywhere else in the room.

Finally Emma’s voice broke the silence. “Maybe I was thinking of a way to work up the nerve to ask you myself,” she said. “Regina,” she began again, her hand covering Regina’s on the cushion between them.

“Emma.” Regina pulled back, but her hand wouldn’t leave the warm cocoon of Emma’s touch.

“You’re the first person I’ve talked to so much in a long time. Even the people at work are just colleagues, y’know?”

“I thought you were happy.”

“I got happier once you came around.”

“I… can’t move in.”

“All right, so we’ll explain you’ve got other digs somewhere, make the kid happy, but… I’d like to keep seeing you?”

Regina looked down at Emma’s thumb stroking over the back of her hand as her fingers curled around Regina’s. “I, ah, I’d like that.”

Emma smiled and gave the hand a quick squeeze just before sound crashed in back around Regina and she heard Henry moving dishes noisily around in the kitchen. “Kid thinks we’re making out, doesn’t want to hear.” Emma laughed.

Regina blushed, which only made Emma laugh harder.

She leaned back against the couch arm, her gaze studying Emma who was smiling softly at her, before letting her gaze drift around the room. Something gold glinted on a side table. “What’s that?” she asked. When Emma identified the what and brought it to Regina’s hands, Regina asked for a refill on her cider.

Turning it over in her palm as her heart raced, Regina recalled the last time she had held this object, sliding it onto a counter in Granny’s diner toward Emma Swan as Henry looked on.

Graham’s sheriff’s star. She had the keepsake from Storybrooke, the last item necessary for the memory restoration potion.

“Where’d you get this?” she asked, showing it to Emma as she took her refilled cider glass.

 

* * *

 

Regina stumbled onto the Jolly Roger in the dark after midnight; Killian looked at her from the opening to the lower deck. “They asked if they could help me today,” she said, voice choked with tears that had started falling as soon as her foot hit the pavement at the edge of the park. She hadn’t been able to stop. “They want me to move in.” She laughed through her tears. The sound was sad. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Killian nodded. “You’ve got to. Swan’s everyone’s only hope.”

“How can I take away her happiness?” Somewhere along the way, Regina realized, she hadn’t just wanted Emma happy to be able to take care of Henry, but happy in her own right. And Emma was not happy. “She says she wants to date me.”

“She said that?”

“Yes.”

“Was she as drunk as you are?”

“I am not drunk.”

Catching her under the arm, Hook snorted. “You’re doing a fairly good impression. What’d she have?”

“Hard cider. Wonderful vintage.”

“So the child of Charming and Snow White likes apples.” Regina glared at him. Hook poured Regina onto the bunk to leave her to her solitude.

She held up a hand with a gold sheriffs badge in it. “She had this though. It’s Graham’s badge from Storybrooke.”

“Well, hallelujah. How’d you find it?”

“I was asking about things again. Apparently she thinks Henry won it at a carnival or street fair, or something. Her memory’s a little vague.”

“Of course it is.” There were two of Killian leaning on the doorframe. “You get some sleep and you can mix that potion in the morning.”

“Right,” Regina said forlornly, feeling worse with every passing second. She shut her eyes to block out the swaying of the furnishings.

 


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, Regina tries the memory-restoring potion and finds her heart conflicted.

 

 

Regina ordered Emma’s coffee Monday morning, telling the blonde it was on her. They remained for a minute at the standing bar, Regina saying she wanted a breather before they resumed their walk to the offices. She watched closely as Emma took her first sip. Nothing appeared to happen. She had poured in half the vial. Maybe the heat was a problem.

Back at the waterfront park, she reported no joy. They waited; Regina decided dejectedly that she would try with a cold drink at Emma’s apartment that evening.

She cried as she poured the cider, and added the remaining half of the potion to Emma’s glass. With a swirl of a spoon the cloudiness vanished, leaving only the perfectly amber liquid. She took it out to Emma on the couch. Henry had gone to his room to finish his homework.

“I want to apologize, Emma,” she said, even as she was sitting down. She wiped her hand on her pants leg after passing over the glass.

Emma sipped at the cider. She hesitated then drank more deeply. “Seems a little sweeter tonight.”

“Probably the dregs,” Regina said.

“Probably,” Emma echoed. She lowered the glass. “You all right? You seem anxious.”

“Yes, I’m… I’ve been thinking about what you asked me.”

“Thinking about taking up the offer?”

“I think I’ll be leaving New York soon.”

“And go where?” Emma asked. She sipped on the cider again. Regina watched, her frustration slowly mounting.

“Back where I came from, I suppose.”

“Home, huh? You got people there?”

“Yes.”

“People who love you?”

“No.” While she and Snow had buried much of their past, love was not what had replaced the hate. They tolerated each other and, in this case, shared a common goal.

“Then stay, Regina. Henry and I… we want you.”

“You won’t look at me much longer thinking that,” Regina said. She pushed herself up from the couch.

“Why not?” Emma stood. Regina turned to watch the woman drain the last of the glass. The last of the potion. Any moment now… But she didn’t drink. Emma crossed the space toward her. She backed up.

“What gives, Regina?”

“This. Is all wrong,” she said. She gathered up her coat.

“You’re leaving?” Emma came around the other end of the couch trying to intercept Regina on the way to the door.

“You’re going to remember,” Regina replied.

“Remember what?” Emma reached out for Regina. But instead of letting Emma touch her, coax her into staying, Regina grabbed the glass and threw it against the wall. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“You’re going to remember and you’re going to hate me.”

“Regina, I have no idea what you’re talking about, but you need to calm down.” Emma’s arms were around her then before she could stop them.

She pushed at Emma’s chest. Emma’s lips trailed across Regina’s forehead, to her temple, breathing warm and steady in her ear. “Emma, no.”

“Why are you so scared?”

Lowering her head, she felt the wetness on her face but it didn’t register as tears until Emma lifted her chin, brushing her thumb across one wet track of them on her left cheek.

Then Emma was touching her lips to Regina’s. She felt a shock of magic pass over them. She cried into the kiss, knowing what it meant. The potion would never have worked. Emma truly did have to do everything of her own free will. Her magic as the product of true love was too powerful to be broken by a mere potion. Regina realized too the kiss meant she had found true love after a lifetime -- two, really -- without it. Emma deepened the kiss. They parted breathless.

“Regina?” The quality in Emma’s voice was astonishment even though she didn’t release Regina. She had no idea what to say. They stood in the silence staring at one another.

“Emma! Emma!” Henry rushed out of the hallway. “Mom?” His eyes were wide as he crashed against the back of the couch. He gaped at her. “Mom!” Henry fell against Regina as Emma finally let her go, his arms circling her shaking shoulders. Weakly she wrapped one arm around him, as Emma gripped her other hand tightly.

“Mom! It’s really you!” Henry buried his face in her shoulder.

“I told you it wouldn’t be real,” Emma said.

“I wanted you safe from Pan’s curse,” Regina said.

Henry asked, “If you’re here does that mean it didn’t work?”

“No, destroying the scroll worked. Everyone was transported back to the Enchanted Forest. It’s been more than a year. Now we have another problem.”

Emma asked, “Is everyone all right?”

“The kingdom is facing a new threat.”

“And the Savior’s needed, right?” Henry asked eagerly, “So when do we leave?”

“Emma?” Regina held the green gaze seriously. “I don’t want to make this decision for you.”

“But you gave me my memories back.”

“I tried. The potion didn’t work.”

“Potion?”

“The too sweet cider,” Regina clarified. Emma eyed the glass shards against the wall.

Regina shook her head. “I want you to have a choice, Emma.”

“You know there’s only one choice though, right?”

“What good people would do?” Regina said.

“Yeah.” Emma stood, reaching her hand out toward Regina. “Let’s go.”

Henry asked, “How’re we gonna get there?”

Regina cupped her son’s cheek, realizing that she was looking him directly in the eye now. How much he had grown. She felt her lips twist sadly.

“Hook’s here with his ship,” she said.

Emma nodded; her memories apparently retained that Hook had been her first visitor. Her next line confirmed it. “Is he still singing soprano?”

Regina laughed. “In his defense, he thought he was helping.”

 


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Jolly Roger leaves New York.

 

 

Emma was waiting for Regina when she emerged back on the Jolly Roger’s deck. “Henry finally asleep?” she asked.

“Yes. He wants to know everything right now.”

“What’d you tell him? I have a few questions myself.”

“I haven’t been there for the two weeks since coming to find you. But the West Witch has been terrorizing those of us who returned.”

“Not that. I’ll hear enough about that when I talk to my parents. Regina, I need to know what’s… well, where we are? When I left Storybrooke, you made me forget everything. To protect Henry, so he wouldn’t be alone. But then I find out, you gave me many of your memories of him as a child. Why would you do that?”

“You needed to know how to care for him.”

“You just let me go.”

“It was the only way.”

“Yet you said this was my choice? Why would that be necessary and this be a choice?”

“Emma,” Regina started.

“The potion didn’t bring back my memories, Regina. You did. With true love’s kiss.”

“I know.”

“How long have _you_ known?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because it matters to me. Did you let me go knowing how you feel about me?”

Regina leaned on the railing looking out at the city. Emma leaned on it on one elbow next to her, watching the woman’s hands cross and uncross over the water. “I think I did,” she said, and her voice was choked.

Emma nodded. She reached out to grasp one of Regina’s hands over the water. “I think I did, too.”

“I really did want you to be happy.”

“And I remember telling you that your plan didn’t sound like much of a happy ending.”

“You did say that.”

“But this?” Emma asked, a little annoyed at how earnest she sounded.

Regina turned to Emma and smiled. “This feels like it could be a happy beginning.”

Emma reached out with her other arm and pulled Regina into her chest. “All right, so it’s a beginning.” She kissed Regina’s forehead and smiled when she felt Regina’s lips against the soft skin of her throat.

###


End file.
